New to garlic in So California!

gman68558(z10 So Cal)July 20, 2005

Hi all. Been learning a lot reading through this forum.

Hoping to plant some garlic in the fall. Anything specific I should be aware of living in So. Cal? I am actually very close to the ocean so it never gets super hot in the summer, and the winters are fairly mild.

My main question regards planting time. In October it can still be fairly warm here - should I hold off planting until maybe Nov or early December?

I ordered the warm winter assortment from Gourmet Garlic Gardens to get me started. The planting area will be on a narrow south facing deck - I will need to construct a planting bed of some type.

I, too, am a garlic newbie in SoCal. I know I was told to wait to plant garlic until November (it's hot here through October as well). I did that last year and just harvested some softneck I got from my brother in Seattle. Other than the fact that I didn't feed them at all (didn't know they were heavy feeders!), they look great and I got several really large bulbs regardless. All bulbs formed cloves except one!

Maybe someone else can comment on what specific kinds of garlic to grow - I do think softneck are easiest in the south, although I intend to try hardnecks, too.

I am in northern Ca with temps often in excess of 100F. I have two un-named purple stripes which do very well here. I suggest checking out the purple stripe varities for ones that might do well in S Ca.
Kettle River Giant, California White, German Porcelin, Music/Musik, Italian Purple, and Elephant all did OK to very well. These are all 12 to 16" tall by early spring most years.
My pet gopher left me with only one Kettle River Giant this year. I have given up on most of these as the purple stripes are the easiest to grow and as long as I put in plenty of Elephants, the gophers leave the Purple Stripes alone. Besides, my wife resists useing any but the Purple Stripes.